Holy Guacamole

Holy Guacamole.

A preeminent fruit producer asked Zinata to help guide it into a more fluid future. Here’s what happened.

Situation

The world’s leading producer, distributor and marketer of fresh Hass avocados needed help. It is a vertically integrated company whose focus is providing worldwide customers a year-round supply, global availability and various value-added services. Its troubles arose from rapid growth built on a homegrown information system that supported siloed functional operations. Zinata was asked to help re-map the business processes in order to help the company decide whether to drive future growth on the current information system or implement a new one.

Prescription

Zinata proposed a broader view of the project – knowing that the work must start with a clear corporate (and supporting functional) vision of the future. Workshops were conducted first with the executive leadership team, then with functional leadership teams, to identify and acknowledge gaps in the current state, and to harness their dissatisfaction to create a clear, compelling vision of the future state they wished to reach.

Implementation

Using standard Zinata processes and templates, the client was taught how to document their work processes at the functional level. By looking at each process through an input-process-output model, the team began to appreciate the connections between processes and functions. Zinata then brought multi-functional representatives together to draw the current and future states process maps. For the first time, people understood why their work was important to others and how their various parts in the process came together to complete the whole. This unleashed a powerful desire to solve all problems by working together using the best practice tools brought aboard by Zinata.

Outcome

The corporate strategy is now more clearly articulated and communicated to the broader organization. A path forward to a new ERP system is in place. It includes new people capabilities and business work processes. Mid-level managers are energized and empowered to drive change now and well into the future by working together multi-functionally.

“Zinata is extremely responsive. They’ve done a tremendous job so far and have given us the tools and the confidence that we can get this done. They’ve followed through on every commitment.”Company CEO

We thrive on solving complex business performance and process problems. If you’ve got questions or would like to discuss how we’ve helped companies like yours, drop us a line.